Adani Transmission Limited (ATL) has signed a share purchase agreement and completed the acquisition of the WRSS XXI Transco Limited (WRSSTL) from REC Transmission Projects Company. ATL had won this project through a tariff-based competitive bidding process and received the letter of intent in July 2019. WRSSTL transmission project consists of approximately 272 circuit kilometers 765kV and 3,000 MVA transformation capacity. The equity shares were acquired at face value of Rs 10. The company will build, own, operate and maintain the transmission project in Gujarat for 35 years.
The Indian electricity transmission segment has been constantly evolving in line with the increasing power demand and the changing energy mix due to the influx of renewables. Going forward, an investment of Rs 2.6 trillion is required in transmission alone to meet the future peak load, which is expected to reach 234 GW by 2021-22. Grid expansion will also be driven by the government’s ambitious plan to scale up renewable energy to 175 GW by 2022. The private sector is expected to play an important role in achieving the country’s grid expansion targets as competitive bidding gains momentum at both interstate and intra-state levels.
For the integration of 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022, Powergrid along with other involved state utilities is undertaking the Green Energy Corridors (GEC) project to connect new solar and wind capacity. Under GEC I, where Powergrid received long-term access applications for 12 GW, about 9,400 ckt. km and 19,000 MVA of substation capacity is targeted to be added at the intra-state level and 3,200 ckt. km and 17,000 MVA (across six substations) at the interstate level. Most of the schemes under GEC I have been commissioned at the interstate level while several intra-state lines are under construction.
Under GEC II, transmission schemes for evacuation from 34 ultra mega solar power parks with capacity totalling 20 GW have been planned. Of these, 13 solar parks (9.2 GW) have been identified for evacuation through the ISTS. Further, Powergrid is responsible for the implementation of the transmission system for eight solar parks (7.2 GW) entailing 1,870 ckt. km of lines and five substations of 13,500 MVA. So far, the implementation has been completed for three solar parks (4,250 MW) by Powergrid.